


Perfectly Not Ordinary

by Courageous_Dreamer



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Elementals, Friends to Lovers, HiatuStory June Challenge, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Slow Build, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-22
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-11-17 05:28:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11268876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Courageous_Dreamer/pseuds/Courageous_Dreamer
Summary: John and Sherlock each have a secret they are keeping from the other - nothing is as ordinary as it appears, not even the brand of ordinary they established for themselves as friends and flatmates. After everything they've been through, is this the secret that keeps them from being more than what they are? What else is desperately unspoken? Hiatustory June Challenge





	Perfectly Not Ordinary

**Author's Note:**

> First fanfiction in this fandom on this site! Hello Ao3! Hiatus June Prompt Challenge - Elementals! At this stage while complete for the moment for the purposes of submitting to the prompt deadline, this story feels like it has the potential to extend beyond this to something greater. Many thanks to my muse and friend Tali-Zora. I can be found on my tumblr @musing-out-loud.

John Watson liked to think that at heart, he was a fairly average British male. He liked his tea, he loved his Bond films and he had served Queen and country both on the battlefield and within the walls of a clinic’s office. He didn’t have particularly stunning looks, he was just inside the average height ratio…well, ok he was on the shorter side of average but that was still average, thank you very much! 

All in all, he was perfectly ordinary. Except when he wasn’t. And he couldn’t even blame Sherlock. 

Sure, having a mad flatmate made looking in the fridge every morning a daily adventure. Let’s not even talk about the true purpose of a kitchen. Or mention the skull. And he supposed that a bright yellow smiley faced riddled with bullet holes did demonstrate the crumbling façade of human experience in some modern artistic sense.

Those things he could certainly attribute to Sherlock. 

Sherlock was adventure, sarcastic wit, warmth and home. All wrapped up in one ridiculously mysterious, beautiful package. Somehow, Sherlock became his own brand of ordinary which complimented John’s, like two sides of the same coin. That’s when John felt like taking another crack at poetry at any rate.  
He still couldn’t legitimately blame Sherlock when things weren’t quite so ordinary though.

John stared at his bed in dismay. He wasn’t sure he could sneak another set of bed linens past Mrs. Hudson and goodness knows what she would think. If he was lucky, she’d leave it at nothing more than raised eyebrows and an exaggerated wink. 

Which wouldn’t be quite so bad if he was changing his sheets for the reasons she thought, at least it would be a fun way to need to do so much laundry. Certainly it was more interesting than the mundane reason that he overheated and thus sweated. Obscene amounts of sweat. 

He couldn’t blame her though. Who sweated so much in the middle of winter?

Well…John Watson. But that was hardly ordinary.

He lived with a mad flatmate whose entire existence followed the laws reality dictated. Up was up, down was down. Laws of nature and gravity and science and all that jazz which made the world turn around. Sherlock already struggled with social conventions so he just wasn’t quite sure how the man would deal with something so very….unconventional. Let alone the fact that he’d failed to deduce it in all this time. 

If Sherlock couldn’t deduce this on his own, perhaps one day he’d be able to muster up the words to tell him.

“Sherlock, don’t conduct any mad experiments on me or anything but I can control fire. It’s not as glamourous as all that, because it makes me sweat buckets and need to change my bedsheets. All. The. Time. Do we have a new case?”

Those words sounded terrible even in his own mind, he couldn’t imagine what they’d sound like out loud.

John sighed and gave it up for a bad job at the moment, deciding that a good cup of tea was in order. Perhaps Sherlock had – as he bounced down the last step he heard the kettle whistle and felt a grin tugging at his lips. Perfect.

\---

Sherlock Holmes was quite used to being anything but average. In fact, for a few short years he’d actually thought he was less than average and with all the logic only a small child could muster, he’d dreaded school. What was the use of discovering new things if he wouldn’t excel at them? Would he always be destined to live in Mycroft’s considerable shadow?

The day he learnt he wasn’t subpar at anything was the day he decided he would be whatever the hell he wanted to be, Mycroft be damned. Well, the child’s equivalent of such a decision. It had taken considerably more years and a better knowledge of the world which surrounded him before that seed of a thought germinated in creating his own occupation, Consulting Detective.

At least now when Sherlock spouted off a rapid fire deduction, it seemed more acceptable by typical social conventions when in the service of a client. Certainly it drew less venom from the people around him. ‘Piss off,’ was a phrase he was hearing with less regularity these days, although he supposed he could attribute that to John’s influence more than anything.

John. 

Dr. Watson with all his fluffy, too large jumpers which hid a surprisingly firm, fit body. A man who merely rolled his eyes at the contents of the fridge before reminding Sherlock again to keep his experiments to the designated shelves and away from the consumables. John was the man who giggled when Sherlock made a comment where others would stare at him in horror and disgust. He was perfectly ordinary in all the ways that counted and yet didn’t bat at eyelash at Sherlock’s quirks, no matter what he threw at him. John had become indispensable as his conductor of light, which justified Sherlock’s uncertainty that John might not be able to handle yet another thing which made Sherlock anything but average. It’s why he never said a word. He wasn’t sure there was a socially acceptable way to express what he was. What he could do.

“John. I can manipulate water and bend it to my will. It means I’ve never in my life had a cold cup of tea. Dull. Now about that murder Lestrade’s just called about…”

Even in Sherlock’s mind palace, that phrasing failed produce favourable results.

John had been silent in his room for quite some time now. He knew the man was awake and yet he hadn’t made an appearance in the common areas of the flat yet. Shortly though. As if the man was capable of hearing Sherlock’s mental musings, he heard the heavy tread of John’s footsteps down the stairs. With a quick glance in the direction of the kitchen and a flick of a thought, Sherlock had kettle whistling and was rewarded with a smile from John as he walked into the room.

“A case?” John looked almost hopeful to see Sherlock in his armchair, in a typical ‘thinking’ pose.

“Lestrade thinks he has one which may interest us.” Sherlock rolled his eyes to demonstrate his opinion on Lestrade’s thoughts. He was startled by the quick smile John sent in his direction as he walked past before concluding John was delighted by the inclusion in the word ‘us’. 

It was the two of them against the rest of the world. One day, he would convince the silly man to believe in it too. Whether or not he believed in it while also knowing all about Sherlock and his abilities….well, it was a possibility to consider later. 

For now, they were Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, perfectly average in their own brand of normal.


End file.
